


Aftermath of a Dream's End

by Rogue of Heart (Akumeoi)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Almost but not quite, F/M, Gen, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2031996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Rogue%20of%20Heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And in spite of all odds, it was good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath of a Dream's End

It was very late in the night, almost morning, and Karkat and Terezi, and Eridan and Nepeta were curled up on the floor of Karkat and Terezi’s basement.

All of them were now around 10 sweeps old, living in their own hives, bonded as matesprits – to each other. They were sleeping over together for old times’ sake, to talk together and laugh together and to eat way too much food cooked by Terezi together. Now Karkat was buried in a pile of blankets with Terezi’s arms around him, and Nepeta was curled up on a separate mattress next to Eridan.

Perhaps it was the joy of seeing two of his friends, one good and one not-so-good, or perhaps it was too much late-night coffee, but Karkat couldn’t sleep. Propping his chin up with his hands, he stared listlessly around the still, quiet room.

He noticed that Nepeta’s eyes were open and that her tail was twitching.

“Hey, Nepeta,” Karkat said idly.

“Hey, Karkitty,” she whispered cheerfully, rolling onto her stomach, careful not to wake Eridan, who was gently snoring beside her. She disentangled her feet from the blankets and swung them in the air like a schoolgirl. Her socks had blue tiger stripes on them.

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Karkat asked her.

Nepeta giggled quietly. “Eridan is snoring in my ear! I think he sleeps better when he’s upright in a recupurracoon.”

Karkat grimaced. “I really don’t want to hear about your nasty matesprit and the weird shit he does. I don’t need to know any more personal details about him at all thanks. He might be less of an asshole than he used to be, but that doesn’t mean I need to hear all your fucking gossip about him.”

Nepeta kept grinning. She opened her mouth to say something, but just then Terezi poked Karkat in the side and he looked down at her. Nepeta quickly put her hand over her still-smiling mouth.

“Yes?” Karkat said. Terezi opened one eye sleepily.

“Talk somewhere else,” she grumbled.

Karkat looked up at Nepeta, who was obviously wide awake, and, on impulse said, “Okay whatever, but you’re going to have to let go of me. Babe.”

The last word was muttered so that only Terezi could hear it. Nepeta smirked but fortunately Karkat wasn’t paying attention to her.

Terezi grunted and relaxed her stranglehold on his waist long enough for him to wriggle out of the blankets and stand up. Nepeta followed his lead, taking with her an extra blanket, and both of them traipsed upstairs into the kitchen. It was unusually bright in there, because somebody had left the metal shutters open a quarter of the way. Karkat left it. There wasn’t enough sunlight to be dangerous, and besides, the glass in the windows darkened during the day automatically.

“Want something?” Karkat muttered, gesturing at the fridge, even though they had just had coffee a couple of hours ago. But he didn’t really know what else to say, or why he had invited Nepeta upstairs to chat with him. It was sort-of a late-night impulse. Later he would tell himself that it was because he didn’t know what else to do with her.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Nepeta said, sitting down on the counter, draping the blanket over her lap. She started swinging her legs again. Karkat thought it was absolutely bizarre how she would be moving and hyper one minute and then silent and still the next. That was how cats were, he guessed: full of energy to pounce and to leap, but able to be patient and quiet, stalking their prey.

It was really fucking annoying sometimes.

There was silence in the kitchen for a moment, broken only by the rhythmic but soft ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump of Nepeta’s heels on the wood. Karkat leaned against the side of the fridge, across from her.

Finally he said, “You know, I still don’t get why you became matesprits with that fucking asshole.”

Nepeta shrugged, her expression neutral. “He needed someone, and so did I. Besides, he wasn’t going to be any less of a jerk if nobody took him in paw. Efurryone has an impurrtant job to do.”

“So you were pale for him?” Karkat persisted.

“I guess. One conciliatory quadrant is easily swapped for the other one, you know,” Nepeta said. “And,” she added hastily, “my moirallegiance with Equius is so strong that I couldn’t pawsibly have another pale leaning. You know that.”

Karkat nodded quickly to reassure her. And then, maybe because the sun was up, maybe because he was feeling brave, and maybe because he’d been wondering and wondering about it for at least 6 sweeps now, he said, “You know… I thought you were red for me at one point.”

Absolute silence. Nepeta had stopped moving her feet.

“I… did,” she said cautiously, studying his face to see how he’d respond. Even though he had expected that answer, he couldn’t help but feel a swoop of surprise in his stomach. He hoped that his face hadn’t shown it.

“Do you still?” he asked, cursing himself at the same time as he spoke. Why was he saying this? Why was he upsetting their carefully cultured quadrant balance like this? Did he really need to know?

“Well, I…” Nepeta began, unwilling to finish the sentence. She bit her lip uncertainly.

“It’s okay if you do,” Karkat said softly, in the tone he normally used only during very intense feelings jams. “I won’t be upset, and I won’t tell Terezi.” A small feeling of pity was stirring in his heart for the cat girl, his old and loyal friend, but it wasn’t quadrant-based pity, it was simply sadness.

“Terezi knows me just as well as you do,” Nepeta said quickly.

Karkat looked her in the face until she looked down and said, in an aching voice, “Karkat, I love you and pity you so much I could die.”

Hearing those words was a shock that swept through Karkat and then turned into an ache in his own heart. What he had suspected for so long was true, and even now he still didn’t know how to react to it.

“I know you can’t love me. You have Terezi, and she’s purrfect fur you. It’s okay. I’m used to it now.”

Each sentence was said in a clipped, tight tone as if Nepeta were restraining herself from bursting into a flood of words, or maybe tears. The increased cat puns suggested tears.

“That’s the other reason I’m with Eridan. I needed someone to k33p the drones away. Someone who wouldn’t notice that I didn’t love them as much as I should. He wasn’t picky. He knew Fefurry was gone fur him. We were both each other’s second choices.”

Here she grimaced bitterly, as if she were trying to smile. Karkat opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say, and Nepeta wasn’t done yet anyway.

“I can’t stop loving you. So purrlease don’t try to make me. I’ve loved you my whole life and I will love you furefur. The only thing you can do is purrtend you don’t know about it.”

She looked up at him, and her eyes were green with unshed tears. Karkat almost noticed that she looked beautiful, but he was still frozen, completely unsure of what to say. Nepeta’s lower lip trembled, and he gave up on trying to find words. Instead, he stepped hesitantly towards her. When she didn’t move or flinch, he move forward again, and pulled her shoulders gently towards him in a hug.

Hopping off the counter, Nepeta buried her face in Karkat’s shoulder, letting the blanket fall to the ground beside her. With both arms he held her tightly, stroking her hair, for a long, long time.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, and his voice was trembling.

“Don’t be,” Nepeta breathed. “You’re the only reason I have to go on.” She looked up at him, and her eyes were clear now. Karkat took both of her hands in his own.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, almost sarcastically.

“I know,” Nepeta laughed shakily. “Life didn’t turn out how I thought it would be, but no matter what I know you’re always there, always the same Karkat. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t love me, so that makes it okay.”

That did make sense, in a twisted sort of way.

“This love… it shows me the way. It doesn’t have to be requited to be perfect, or to be real. I must have loved you in another life.”

“You think so?” Karkat said. He was surprised by how much sense that made to him – the other life thing. It almost felt real. He wanted to believe in it, in what Nepeta was telling him, so that he could feel less guilty about having nothing to give her.

Well, not nothing… friendship.

“How can you stand talking to me all the time? And seeing me, and –”

Nepeta put her finger to his lips and he quickly stopped talking.

“Do you want me to –” he started again, and she shushed him.

“Gogdammit, let me talk, Leijon!” he said, but there was no real edge in his voice.

Nepeta laughed, her face lighting up like a firefly, and Karkat wondered how she did it.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just keep being yourself, Karkitty, always and furefur, and that will be enough. It has always been enough.”

So Karkat kissed her on the forehead and then shoved her away, because there was no way he was going to maintain his dignity without doing that. And Nepeta laughed again, and they spent the rest of the night talking and laughing in Karkat’s kitchen.

And they never spoke of Nepeta’s feelings again. But she would hold in her heart the memory of this one night, and as she had said, her love for him never died out. And Karkat would love her from afar, not the kind of love she wanted, but a deep respect and trust that made of them the best of friends.

In spite of all odds, it was good.

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is my best KatNep fanfiction.


End file.
